« Contemporary art is getting hairyLong and silky; short and curly. Blond, brunette, red or grey. It’s hair and it has an important part in our perceptions of ourselves. It defines gender and visual identity, and is playing an important role lately in art — in jewelry, drawings or in mixed media pieces.Hair has long had a role in the work of artists and artisans. In the Victorian era, creating jewelry from hair became almost as popular as knitting or crocheting. By using one’s own hair or that of a beloved family member women were able to design bracelets, chains, rings and earrings. Apart from jewelry, mourners would weave hair into decorative, memorial wall hangings. By the early 1900s using hair fell out of fashion. During the past 15 years, however, there’s been a fascination among contemporary artists using skin, nail clippings, urine and hair to create various forms of art.Fascinated with Victorian hair jewelry, artist and jewelry designer Melanie Bilenker has revived the art form. Like the Victorians who kept lockets of hair and miniature portraits painted with ground hair and pigment to secure the memory of a lost love, renders the « quiet minutes, the mundane, the domestic, the ordinary moments » from her own tresses.Bilenker observes various daily activities such as cleaning, bathing, dressing, resting or eating. She chronicles the private moments by setting the camera’s timer and goes about her business which can be anything such as eating chocolate, writing a note or enjoying a Saturday morning breakfast.Once she has the photographed images, Bilenker creates tracings of the forms within ghem with thousands of tiny strands of her own hair – which are eventually fixed in resin. She meticulously layers several different drawings to give the appearance of depth, one as foreground, another as background. The entire process takes the course of about a week of laying hairs, mixing resin, and then allowing it to cure. Says Bilenker, « Once the hairs are set as line drawings within resin, I shape, smooth and polish the exterior. I then fabricate the jewelry findings and set them. The piece is then complete. »" (Courtesy Melanie Bilenker and Sienna Gallery)

Each line in these drawings by Melanie Bilenker are made using strands of the artist’s own hair! The delicate drawings depict quiet scenes of domestic life which are sealed in Victorian-inspired brooches and rings.

Katie Wightman| Exploring the fragility of the female form. Experiencing hair loss as the result of illness, Katie uses precious metals and human hair to release the stigma and create pieces with a new found sense of beauty and power.

Polly van der Glas (AU) - Since 2005 my work has centered on materials that were once attached to our bodies: human hair, teeth and fingernails. These materials were at one time part of an intimate, elaborate maintenance ritual.

Rickson Salkeld – I am interested in the feminine idealin relation to the female body. I enjoy creating work that expresses my wish to both conform and rebel against ideas of femininity. Through various materials and processes I take from my own body both physically and metaphorically. Hair can be used to comment on feminine allure and power, while clear resin is used to symbolize an abundance of tears

Maria Ignacia Walker – MFA JEWELLERY AND BODY ORNAMENTS Alchimia contemporary jewellerySchool 2013 – 2015 – A simple fact of life that María Ignacia Walker obsesses over: The shedding of hair. The obsession – losing them, collecting them, ordering them, measuring them and archiving them. The desire – to preserve these losses – It gives rise to “transcendieron”. The discourse is not about beauty and it is not about sensuality, not even about cultural symbols that hair carries. How much hair do you lose constantly, everyday ? How many pieces grow out of your body and die every moment ? “The transcendents” are a homage to the moments when you lose your hair. Captured and immortalized in the fragility of the porcelain, they give perpetuity and freeze all their expressions in the moment of their detachment from the body. With a threading method, the artist uses horsehair as connectors. They show the lightness, energy and freedom, while demonstrating the real, natural movement of the hair. Together with the act of keeping and protecting the hair in a porcelain form, they are given another life that keeps them present through their absence.

MARION DELARUE — « Mania » – Traditional korean lacquer, korean hair. 2011 « During my stay in South Korea, I was struck by Korean ladies’ habits of playing with their hair fringes. As soon as they had the chance they would roll up their hair by making it slide between their forefinger and their middle finger and then pull on it softly. Since I was often bored during such long classes taught in a language I don’t understand, I spent time observing the students… »

Kerry Howley Attraction/Aversion is a material exploration of how people can feel seemingly opposing emotional responses simultaneously. The necklaces are made of human hair, a familiar material that we take pride in. However once off of the body hair becomes an innate source of aversion.